Sunday, June 30, 2013

Factoid of the day

We wouldn’t actually recognize the ketchup. We think of a thick
gloopy red sauce made from tomatoes but to the Georgians it originally
meant a dark brackish liquid infused with fermented fish extracts and,
later, a type of runny chutney made from items such as fermented
walnuts, or mushrooms. The tomato didn’t make an appearance in ketchup
before 1800, and sugar really only became an ingredient fifty years
after that....

Etymologists argue whether the word has Chinese or Malay origins –
certainly it came to Britain with various spelling variants, Jonathan
Swift was describing it as’ catsup’ back in 1730. Katchup, Catchup, and
Kitchup were alternative spellings to a product which quickly became
phenomenally popular throughout the English speaking world.

What was this Asian sauce? It's clear from the earliest English recipes
that the original ketchup was fish sauce, the stinky cooking sauce called
nuoc mam in Vietnam, nam pla in Thailand, patis in the Philippines,
and made from salting and fermenting anchovies.

They note it is no Han Chinese, but from the Min (cantonese) dialect of southern China and includes a map line to show where Patis is used vs soy sauce use. (we use both).
And the blog has a long explanation of the word's usage in SE Asia and southern China.

And did you know here, we have banana catsup here in the Philippines? It tastes almost the same as the American ketchup, which we also can buy locally....

but when I lived in Africa, I actually brought a big bottle of ketchup with me, because the British ketchup was very vinegary in taste, not sweet like Heinz...